Page 97 of Strangers in Time

And it had.

Simpkin & Marshall, in particular, had flamed with an intensity perhaps never before seen in the city. The inferno had been fed by its inventory of millions of books. And more tragically, many people had died, some incinerated in their beds. It had been deemed the Second Great Fire of London, after the one that had occurred nearly three centuries earlier. The entire city was at risk of burning from the mass of incendiary bombs dropped on that cold night in December, but the fires had eventually been extinguished, and nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral had once more been spared.

Oliver and Imogen had ventured one day to Paternoster Row and seen the devastation. Both had openly wept at the losses. His wife had been near inconsolable, as the ashes of destroyed books still filtered through the breezy air, covering them like the detritus of an apocalyptic eruption.

The casualty list posted to the borough’s town hall ran to several pages, Oliver recalled, including over a dozen firemen who had perished fighting the blazes.

He remembered watching Imogen staring, dead-eyed, at the loss of books and people, her two favorite things in life, and then she had slumped to the pavement sobbing. He had held her as tightly as he could. Yet nothing he could say was consoling enough, and his beloved wife was racked with sob after sob for well over an hour.

When Imogen rose she did so unsteadily, but then his wifelooked at him in a way that she never had before. It was as though a different person was standing before him.

“War is never the answer, Ignatius,” she said. “Never.”

And then she had walked off. As things turned out, that had been a defining moment for Imogen Oliver. For both of them, really.

Oliver felt tears gather in his eyes at this wretched memory.

He looked at the Secret Garden tea shop across the way. Desdemona Macklin would no doubt describe Oliver as someone who kept himself to himself. But she was also observant. She seemed to note every visitor that he had. And one in particular—Cedric. That was not good.

He drew the curtains. During the Blitz most shops closed at four so that folks could get some sleep before their nightly shift began as volunteers with, among others, the fire brigade, the air wardens, or the Heavy Rescue Division, the latter comprised of men driving battered lorries whose thankless job it was to search the rubble for survivors, but more often finding the dead. These squads were routinely comprised of those in the construction industry who used their knowledge of structures and load points and the like to safely burrow into collapsed buildings.

He rolled up his sleeve and looked at one of the burns he had suffered when a magnesium cluster had landed on him. It was as though electrified fire had been injected into him. Had his fellow warden not been there to assist him, Oliver knew he would be no more. This fellow warden had died the very next night when a wall had toppled on him. Oliver had been a dozen steps behind, only because he had stopped to pick up an injured cat. He had taken off his gas mask to see better and proceeded to knock the burning embers off the poor animal’s coat. He looked up to witness the wall collapsing on his mate.

He had not been on duty, but had been near the Marble Arch Underground station on Oxford Street in Westminster when a bomb had come through the station’s ceiling. Those not killed by the initial blast had been ripped apart by the tiles sheared off the walls and hurled through the air at them like thousands of spinning knives.

Coming upon that scene he had picked not through bodies, but bodyparts. He and a dozen other wardens had worked for hours helping to clear the mess. Though he knew there were survivors, Oliver had never personally seen a single one.

Part of his air warden training had involved a plea for detachment, a level of sangfroid that Oliver found logical and necessary while being instructed on it, and impossible to employ in the heat of the moment. Any warden who could coolly and dispassionately walk through devastation and death was not a human being he desired ever to meet.

Oliver’s official report forms, in which wardens documented all incidents on their watch in order to build a knowledge base of enemy activity, were regularly stained with his tears.

His thoughts turned to Charlie. He was out there somewhere, and in a city of millions and hundreds of square miles and God knew how many buildings and places to hide oneself, he was certain they would never find him. They would have to wait for Charlie to return to them.

If he ever managed to.

A GOODMAN?

THE LETTER SEEMS TObe quite in order,” said Matron Tweedy to Molly the following morning. She folded it up, placed it back in the envelope, and secreted it in a drawer of her desk. She stood and said, “Now, let’s get a proper uniform for you. Last night I had one of our volunteers alter one we had for a nurse who was around your size. I think it will work well enough.”

She took Molly to a changing room and presented her with the outfit: white skirt and blouse, cap and a blue cape, and rubber-soled shoes and white stockings.

“Now go ahead and change and I’ll start you on your duties. I thought at first you could work with some of the WVSes in rolling bandages and the like and then we can have you follow nurses on their rounds, to get your legs under you as it were. How does that sound?”

“It sounds fine,” said Molly, who was pink-faced with excitement, but also suffering from a severe case of butterflies in her stomach.

She quickly donned her uniform and met Tweedy in the hall. “I’ve heard of the WVS, but wasn’t exactly sure what they did.”

“Yes, the Women’s Voluntary Service. They do so much. Runningfield kitchens and canteens, clothing centers for the homeless, and performing domestic work in clinics, like this one. They even darn socks for the army. I don’t know how we would manage without them. They’re paid nothing, of course, and even have to buy their own uniforms.”

Molly was led to a room where a small group of women in their official livery of gray-green tweed skirts, red jumpers, and felt hats was sitting at a long table, rolling bandages and filling kits with medical items and other essentials. Some were darning socks, as Tweedy had already mentioned. Still others were heading out of the room with mops and buckets and rags and long checklists on clipboards.

Tweedy introduced Molly. Several of the women seemed quite surprised to see Molly in a proper nurse auxiliary’s uniform.

“How old are you, my dear?” said one.

“In war or calendar years?” replied Molly, who had been keenly prepared for that query.

This broke the ice as all the ladies tittered over her response. Molly rolled bandages for several hours, actually teaching the women a quicker and more efficient way to do so.

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